Like two sides of the same coin
by Kaesteranya
Summary: My drabble and standalone short dump for fics revolving around Hughes and Roy: where they stand, how they are, what their relationship is/could have been and why they do what they do, with or without each other.
1. Ignore Conscience, Justify Everything

**Ignoring your conscience allows you to justify everything.**

_Inspired by the 31 Days theme for July 8, 2006._

Something that not a lot of Maes Hughes' subordinates knew about him was that during the war he'd been revered as something like a butcher of human souls. He would carve up his enemies in the way a meat man carved up pigs with his knives, and just as he was always first on the field where there was blood to spill, he was also always the last to leave the carnage. Whenever his comrades-in-arms asked him how he did it, Maes would always tell them the trick was in the mind. Make everything funny. Treat yourself like you're already did. After that, the rest was easy.

Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, was much younger than Maes and with a deeper sense of right and clearer eyes to see with than Maes and as such the war burned itself too deep in his mind, chilling him in a place that no fire or warmth could reach. Maes, being closest to him, saw the boy spinning out of control a lot sooner than Roy himself saw it, and for that reason he drank with the boy and kissed the boy and fucked the boy to make him forget all about it. Their first few times required roughness and alcohol. Their next ones only needed a bit of force and some sweet little half-truths.

It was easy to ignore the way he felt for Roy and the way Roy felt for him on the battlefield, but when the war was over truth was there to rear its ugly head at them instead. Still, Maes the man hadn't been Maes the killer for nothing, and again it was ridiculously easy to tell Roy he was going to get married and watch the heartbreak in the Flame Alchemist's eyes like he didn't see a thing.


	2. But not without considerable regret

**But not without considerable regret.**

_Written to match the prompt "tire tracks and broken hearts". The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 5, 2008._

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It always starts with a phone call in the middle of the day; the person on the other end of the line does not speak for exactly fifteen seconds before he hangs up. Maes Hughes, of course, already knew who it was the moment the phone rang. He slips out of his office during the lunch break, changes out of his uniform and hits the streets of the city. He doesn't bother looking to see where he's going anymore; his feet already know the way.

Roy Mustang won't apologize, of course, but he's got this funny look on his face that Hughes has come to identify as his almost-kind-of-guilty face. Hughes makes a big deal out of pretending not to notice, and putters around his old friend's apartment, setting things in order. It's a typical bachelor's pad (read: messy) – the direct opposite of the way Roy carries himself when people are watching. When the world's watching. Hughes puts the coffee on, leans against the counter and watches it, to avoid looking up and seeing how Roy's leaning against the window and acting like some sort of caged animal that's just realized that it's owned not by itself, but by someone else.

The hard drinks come out after dinner; Roy spends the hours before that hinting that he wants a little booze, and Hughes predictably denies him by insisting on the younger man eating dinner first because he never eats right. He watches Roy eat his food like a hawk, and it's only after that does he allow Roy to crack a bottle open. He's quiet and tense at first, but three drinks later, the clipped, cryptic sentences start up. Five drinks after that and Roy's slumped over the table, mumbling so many different things. And Hughes listens. Some days, when the alcohol doesn't hit fast enough, Hughes has the misfortune (privilege?) of seeing Roy break a little, of watching the mask that has become his friend's face crack. Some days, when the alcohol hits too fast, Hughes has the misfortune (privilege?) of looking up to see Roy looking at him with this sad little smile, of hearing Roy stumble over the delicate topic of them.

And still, he listens.

Hughes always goes home by 3 AM, stepping out of an apartment where he's dumped Roy (gently) unto the bed, pulled off his socks, tucked him in, left a glass of water and pills by the bedside. When he crawls in beside his wife, he pulls her close by her waist and hugs her. When she shifts and murmurs an odd query (where he's been, is he okay), Hughes feigns sleep and doesn't answer.


	3. Watching through a veil

**Watching through a veil.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for December 28, 2007._

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Oddly, it is the sight of Roy Mustang's back that Hughes is most familiar with. The Flame Alchemist was always on the front lines during the Ishval Campaign, and since Hughes was almost always behind a barricade or down with the radio operators in the army outposts, finding Roy was simply a matter of looking for the place with the most smoke and fire and screaming. Roy was always the tiny silhouette in uniform standing in front of the blaze, arm outstretched, hand poised, fingers ready to send more people straight to Hell with an innocent little snap.

Even when they were _off_ the field, Roy always looked like he was running away from something. Hughes would pin it on his horrible timing, except that even when he happens to spot Roy from a distance the younger man's moving like he isn't part of the hustle and bustle all around him, like he was above human problems and maybe – just maybe – human feelings.

That Hughes is also familiar with the way Roy looks in bed, however, completely naked and sweaty and pale and trembling beneath him, disproves that idea rather efficiently. He always used to take the alchemist from behind when they fucked, because it was less about intimacy and more about Hughes giving Roy what he needed, or maybe Roy allowing Hughes to see the full extent of the damage the war's done to him, in burns and battle scars.

The end of the campaign meant Hughes coming home to his girl and that meant the end of Them, and after that, Roy's back was pretty much the only thing Hughes ever saw. Roy made it a point never to talk to Hughes for very long and Hughes let him, because whenever they tried to talk the way they used to it always led back to the maybes and the impossibilities and besides, it was never pleasant, seeing the way the light in the Flame Alchemist's eyes went a little dull and a little sad at the mere mention of Gracia Hughes.

Sometimes, though, Hughes isn't sure what's better: seeing heartache in a look or watching Roy walk away from him, over and over again.


	4. I've squandered all these years

**I've squandered all these years.**

_Spoilers for the first quarter of the manga, and the midpoint of both anime seasons. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 27, 2009._

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It was hard, of course, not to be a bitter about the way the thing that was supposed to be the two of them had fallen apart, and easy – only too ridiculously easy – to hold on to the hurt, to bury it deep inside of his bones and keep all the memories close, collecting them like stones and stuffing them into each and every one of his pockets. Unfair of him, perhaps, but he was tired of being the one who had to bend all the time, for each and every single matter that demanded his attention. He was a good soldier and an even better dog of the military: because of that, he figured that it was his just reward, allowing that one painful indiscretion. Painful, at least, for the man whom all of his longing and self-loathing and sorrow was directed towards.

Nevertheless, he stayed close at hand, listened through all of those phone conversations, showed up every single time the guy happened to be around and raring for a drink at the usual place. It became easier, with time, to balance out the harsh demands of his heart over being jilted with the need to be civil enough to keep himself from driving his friend away completely. He lost it a little whenever they had both had too much to drink (he's still human, after all, in spite of the fact that he's a walking flamethrower), but as a general whole, everything went along swimmingly. Soon, he became very good with staying in the presence of the wife for more than six hours without wanting to turn around and flee. Soon, there were times that he became so comfortable that he had to remind himself of the weight he had chosen to carry, a means through which he could keep himself from getting hurt all over again.

As he stood in front of Maes Hughes' grave, however, Roy Mustang thought back to everything – to all those years spent quietly punishing the man for failing to love him – and thought briefly about a certain set of notes that he kept under lock and key, papers containing a transmutation circle ten times more complicated than the one etched unto the back of his gloves, a complete list of the many raw materials that make up the body of a man.

He realized a moment later, though, as it started to rain inside the quiet confines of his own thoughts, that maybe all of that, too – the agony, a new and deeper sort of regret to replace the kind that he was accustomed to – was exactly what he deserved.


End file.
